10 Things Red Dead Redemption 2 Must Learn From GTA Online

4. Heists Worked Well, But Give Players More Independence This Time

Red Dead Redemption Train Robbery
Rockstar

A year on from its release Heists remain as Online's best feature, but don't we think they could've been a lot better?

I mean don't get me wrong, busting people out of prisons and ransacking city vaults are all well and good, but, apart from their grandiose nature, there was little to differentiate heists from the cookie cutter contact missions that had formed the bread and butter of Online since its release.

This was partly because of mission structure, but also because players were never really given the opportunity to carve out their own role in the semi-linear narrative they were given. Unlike in single player, everyone had to follow a predetermined approach and most roles amounted to little more than glorified context-sensitive actions. Not the most empowering of features it must be said.

So this time around, let players choose how they heist. Want to loot a train by setting dynamite to a track and derailing it? You should be allowed to. Or would you rather infiltrate it as everyday passengers and make off with the booty under the cover of darkness? Again, you should be allowed to. Independence is crucial to making something like heists work.

Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.